I love this song, it’s one of my favorites from Pink Floyd. And I really like this cover… and Sinead O’Connor, too. When I was a kid I grew up with “Nothing Compares 2 U”, among other songs. She also stood out for being “the bald female singer”, something unusual for little me at the time and, generally, for a country that just got out of the communist hole. Later on, I got my fair share of (seeing) bald women, and then some, but that’s a different story. But I mostly like her voice and tone… and I love the way she feels and lives through this song.

The lyrics are great and, although they are kind of gender specific, being like a dialogue between a boy and his mother, it can all be applied in general to children and parents. And the fact of the matter is all parents fail. Those who try to be perfect fail because they can’t be, no one can. No parent is great, let alone perfect. The good parents are overprotective, worry a lot and can be harsh sometimes, even if that can mean annoying and/or unfair. The shitty parents don’t even try to be good and they just don’t care… I’m not counting here the sick, twisted animals who drink, beat and molest… Unfortunately for this species, the latter have many more children than the former…

It’s the small details in the before-and-after photographs from tsunami-hit Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan that are the most telling. A year later, there’s not one power pole, wall-mounted gas meter or roadside curb that hasn’t been meticulously attended to.

Almost as if a giant hand cleared the twisted debris, straightened the paving and fixed the bent and broken pipes, what remains in the worst-hit areas are well-manicured expanses of nothingness.

Where industrious fishing towns once stood are empty streetscapes that resemble vast car parks. In some places, just the foundations — also looking swept and groomed — are the only things left to tell the story of the worst post-war catastrophe to hit Japan.

Desigur, lucrurile nu sunt exact la fel ca inainte de dezastru… nici nu au cum si nici nu vor mai fi vreodata. But they once again rose from the ashes (or more like from under the ocean this time), showing that they truly are a nation to admire and learn a lot from.